Saturday, February 21, 2015

Behind the Blogger: Back to Ohio, Winter Update

Okay, so I've been back to Ohio now for roughly three weeks. After driving for the last four days of January from Las Vegas to Central Ohio (with a couple of stop-overs in Iowa to visit family), we managed to stay ahead of a big winter storm that had basically followed us all the way. We safely ensconced ourselves at The Other Half's sister's house on the west side of Columbus that first night, and then stayed for one more night before moving north to my parents' manse in the woods.

Since that time--all of February--I've been up here, in various stages of "snowed in," mostly. I picked a weird time to move from the Mojave Desert, didn't I? I know, because I kept my Las Vegas weather app on my phone, and can see the seventy-degree temperature gap for myself! At first, I was like a typical Las Vegan, one who had rarely or never driven on snow: a bit freaked out by the prospect. Odd, when you consider my very first experiences driving solo were in a very snowy winter, circa 1982-83. My sister--an experienced hand at both driving on snow and in a big honking diesel pickup truck--has been awesome about driving out here, (where the only access to the road is a half-mile long driveway in the woods, along a cliff) to tamp down the snow a bit for me.

Our poor cars, which have prior to now only known the desert.Mine was cleared off 8 hours prior to this shot.

So, with the occasional melts, and my sis' efforts, getting out hasn't been 100% impossible. I've ventured out a few times, and in fact for one whole afternoon was unknowingly driving around in a level 1 snow emergency. I've--somewhat--got my "snow feet" back underneath me. Now, however, we've been buried under snow again. And I say "we" euphemistically, because in reality, I've spent most of my time up here in Frozen: Ohio Edition mostly alone. The Other Half went off to do some back-to-back-to-back trips for his work over a week ago. And he's not due back for another week!

The view from my temporary bedroom this morning.

Ah, so I have all this time on my hands. I'm not working, other than some few-hours-per-week tele-commuting design work. So, why am I not blogging? What in the world am I doing with my time? Aren't I bored? Yes and no. I'm finding that it's entirely possible to "do nothing," and still have a day zoom by. I'm managing to diet and exercise, including time on the treadmill, and the one-mile round trip in the snow for the mail. I've been cooking and cleaning up after myself (fortunately, I suppose).

Initially, there was the house hunt, and all that entails, including getting the financing, inspection and all of that. There was also the flurry of socializing with local family, though that's been largely curtailed because of the weather. So, right now, I'm in a holding pattern on the house, and pretty much a hermit under the snow. I had to go out to a funeral yesterday, but have no social engagements lined up. I have some work that's likely to come in, but probably won't go beyond a couple of hours' time in the next few days.

So, I'm going to try to get back into the blogging habit! For real! I hope. Here's the surprising thing: after blogging nearly daily for almost 8 years (even given the gradual reduction over the years), I've completely fallen out of the habit. It was a compulsion, a personal obligation for so long, I'd actually feel guilty if I skipped a few non-weekend days. I'd feel compelled to put up something, anything to let people know, "hey, I'm still here!" But I found out, once you willingly put yourself on hiatus, and then return with a "I'm going to slowly come back to this" disclaimer? The daily tug? Evaporates. I've utterly lost the feeling--when I'm once again sitting at the keyboard doing nothing in particular--to blog about this.

The new abode, assuming all goes as planned. Obviously beforethe snow-mageddon.

Well, I'm going to try to get it back. I know I don't want the blog to go permanently dark, and I know also that there's not much point to a once-a-week blog either. I never want it to be a burden though, and I don't want to have a random assemblage of posts that only exists to fill some space. It's still got to interest me, and it's still got to be (hopefully) interesting to others. Now is as good a time as any--in fact, it's not going to get more opportune--for me to find that blogging desire and voice again. Barring an emergency or an unforeseen amount of work obligation, I'm going to re-train myself to blog again, and it begins this weekend.